This book integrates the work of economists, management scientists and business historians. It applies the related concepts of transaction costs, internalisation, corporate strategy and market structure to explain the historical process of corporate growth in the international economy. Each chapter...

Research Methods and Case Studies

‘Big data’ is now readily available to economic historians, thanks to the digitisation of primary sources, collaborative research linking different data sets, and the publication of databases on the internet. Key economic indicators, such as the consumer price index, can be tracked over long...

Vertical Integration and the Division of Labour in World Industries

First published in 1986, this work reports the results of the Leverhulme project on mulitnationals and intermediate product trade based at the University of Reading during the academic year 1982/3. Chapter 1 summarises the main results of this project.
Part I focusses upon the...

This set is the last of three sets of reprinted books charting the emergence, evolution and recent hegemony of international business. Each set of reprints has a separate introduction by the series editor. The first set, The Emergence of International Business 1200-1800, describes the changing...

This set is the last of three sets of reprinted books charting the emergence, evolution and recent hegemony of international business. Each set of reprints has a separate introduction by the series editor. The first set, The Emergence of International Business 1200-1800, describes the changing...

1800-1945

Virtually all modern business has an international component. However the rise of international business is not a uniquely modern phenomenon, it is something that has gathered momentum over many centuries. The great trade fairs of medieval Europe were catalysts for economic growth and they...

Productivity and Technological Progress

The twentieth century has seen dramatic increases in the scale and intensity of international competition, focusing on the critical issues of technological change and productivity.By the end of the nineteenth century the UK had clearly lost its economic leadership to the United States, Germany and...

This impressive collection of turn of the century material reveals the pivotal role of the railway in the Industrial Revolution, and provides a historical background to the modern debate of privatisation. On a broader scale, the material:* demonstrates the problems of transport co-ordination,...

The papers in this volume demonstrate that it can be fruitful to apply institutional theory to business history. In addition, the volume shows that the wider study of the institutional environment is inseparable from the study of business. It is clear, however, that although 'institutionalism' in...